Britain: Anti-Semitism at record high for third straight year

Number of anti-Semitic incidents recorded in the United Kingdom rose to 1,652 in 2018, according to annual CST report.

Ben Ariel, 07/02/19 03:36

London

iStock

The number of anti-Semitic incidents recorded in the United Kingdom rose to 1,652 in 2018, marking a new record for the third straight year, JTA reported on Wednesday.

The report is based on the annual report of the Community Security Trust (CST), which is British Jewry’s largest watchdog on anti-Semitism.

The numbers represent a 16 percent increase over the previous year.

The report published Wednesday evening did show a 17 percent decrease in the number of violent anti-Semitic assaults, to 123 in 2018 from 149 the previous year.

The most common single type of incident in 2018 involved verbal abuse randomly directed at visibly Jewish people in public, accounting for 29 percent of the annual tally, or 483 incidents.

In 502 cases recorded last year, witnesses gave descriptions of the alleged perpetrators. Among them, 64 percent were described as Europeans and 37 percent as Arab, South Asian or black.

Months when public debate about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party tended to see an uptick in incidents, the report found. Incidents directly linked to Labour numbered 148.

CST has recorded anti-Semitic incidents since 1984. The number of incidents since 2013 has more than tripled from the 535 recorded that year, according to JTA.

In the first half of 2017, the Jewish community of the United Kingdom recorded 767 anti-Semitic attacks. CST that year decided to publish a six-month report, in addition to its annual report, because of the unusual volume of incidents.

In 2016, CST found that the number of anti-Semitic incidents in Britain rose by more than a third compared to 2015.